


Dance for Me

by drarryangels



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Dancer AU, Draco does ballet, Drarry, Ficlet, Fluff, Harry does contemporary, M/M, Muggle AU, Short, Sweet, beginning of relationship, dance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 23:37:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20054422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drarryangels/pseuds/drarryangels
Summary: An alternate universe where Draco and Harry are both dancers, and they meet by accident. They don't know it yet, but their life has many more dances yet to come.





	Dance for Me

** _Harry_ **

Could boys be beautiful? _Not like this, _Harry thought. 

He wasn’t in denial, he knew he was bisexual. He had known it since he was ten years old, but this was different. This wasn’t a matter of simply liking a boy. 

Harry had never seen anyone like him. 

Harry walks into the studio he’s danced at since he was young as he does every day. It’s just a normal day, nothing new, nothing special. He nods to several dance instructors clustered happily, chatting about new choreography and the best stretches to do before leaps and turns. 

Harry smiles slightly before he slips into a studio in the back, not bothering to check the reservation times. He always uses this space, back where there’s no mirrors into the main lobby. He doesn’t like to be watched when he dances. Dancing is for him and for him alone. He doesn’t do it for anyone else. 

So when Harry looks up and sees someone already occupying his space, he is beyond shocked. He’s never seen this boy before, although he’s clearly doing ballet. Harry’s mouth drops open. 

There is too much of this boy to absorb all at once. Harry’s eyes widen as he watches the boy. 

Long legs whirl out around him, high and curved elegantly. He’s on pointe. Stunning. It’s rare for a male ballerina to go on pointe unless it’s required for a certain role, and _very_ rare for a boy to look so practiced on pointe as this one does. As if he does it all the time. The lines of his body are straight and elegant. His black tights leave absolutely nothing to the imagination and Harry can see every muscle standing and shifting as the boy glides from one position to the next. 

He’s wearing a muscle tank, but Harry can see the tension in his ribs and core through the gaping arm holes. Harry’s breath gushes out of him when the boy leaps. It’s as if time has slowed just for the boy as he gloats across air particles. 

Pointe, pointe, flat, leap. He transitions seamlessly. 

The music flows as if the boy is directing it, his movements the baton of a conductor. 

Blonde hair splays out across his face, waves sticking to his cheeks and the back of his neck. Half closed eyes peek out from his tilted head. Lovely. 

The light is not inspiring in this space. It’s simply a practice studio, and classical violin music vibrates roughly out of a well used speaker. The floor is scratched, but his feet are narrow, and his shoes velvet. The room smells like music, dust, and sweat, just as it always does. 

He moves sensually, not sexually. He doesn’t see Harry, but he dances as if for an audience. A way in which Harry has never danced. Like the world is watching and waiting for only this story that he has to tell. 

Grace, heartbreak, and hope. 

** _Draco_ **

Draco hardly notices when the door opens. He hears it, but he ignores it. It took him years to perfect this dance, and months after the injury to find this rhythm again. Now, no matter what, he’s not stopping this dance. Not for another dancer, not for a janitor, not even for the owner of this studio. 

He found it. Finally. The dips and falls of this piece. This ballet. He hadn’t understood what his instructor had once tried to tell him. That in order to dance this ballet, you had to perform it. He hadn’t understood it because he had had no story to tell. But now he did. 

So he dances. 

He lets the music flow and swell in him, finding his place in it. He never follows the music, he has to be a part of it. 

He finishes the piece with a carefully arched back, one hand reaching for the sky, and the other for the ground. As if he were reaching for heaven and hell. 

Draco hears a scuffle and his eyes snap open. 

There’s a boy standing in the doorway, his mouth open and his eyes wide and glassy. Dark hair halos around his head, colliding with the dark red of his cheeks and too bright green of his eyes. Draco’s heart thuds painfully. Adorably awestruck. 

Draco stands quickly and shuffles towards his water bottle awkwardly. Pointe shoes are terribly awful to walk in. 

“Hello?” Draco says after he’s had a long drink of water, his breath still coming out in short gasps. A sheen of sweat covers his whole body, and Draco sweeps a pale hand across his face, trying to eradicate some of the shininess. 

“Hi,” the boy stumbles out, reaching forward to shake Draco’s hand. “Sorry I didn’t mean to burst in on you. I didn’t think to check the occupancy. Usually this studio is open.”

“My apologies,” Draco says, shaking the boy’s hand. 

“No, mine,” the boy smiles. Draco’s heart stops in his chest. _Beautiful_, he thinks. 

“I’m Harry,” he says, the smile still on his face. 

“Draco,” he says, letting slip a small smile of his own.

“Your dancing is…” Harry stops for a moment. “Stunning.”

Surprise strikes through Draco. No one has ever said something so kind about his dancing. Or him, for that matter.

“Thank you.” Color blushes up Draco’s cheeks against his will. “Do you do ballet?”

Harry shrugs lightly. “I took it when I was younger, and still do some classes now when I have time. But no, not usually.”

“So what do you do?” Draco looks Harry over curiously. 

Harry has the lean build of a dancer, although perhaps slightly unconventional. He’s not particularly tall or excessively slim. He’s not like Draco, who is built of fine bones and the posture of a petal. He’s built sturdily, but Draco thinks he likes it. 

“Contemporary,” Harry says. A smile crosses his face absentmindedly, and Draco smiles back without really meaning to. 

“Can I see?” Draco asks. He’s not sure why he’s asking. He really needs to be dancing, practicing the choreography his coach gave him, not dawdling on old pieces he had once loved. But something about Harry seems so free. Unbound by the rules of instructors and rigid ballet. Harsh fathers. 

The smile fell off Harry’s face. “I don’t dance in front of people.”

“What? Why not?” Draco’s shock must’ve shown on his face because Harry looks down quickly when he meets Draco’s eyes. Why did people dance if not to do it for other people?

“I just like to dance for me,” Harry says. He lifts onto his toes briefly and stretches his ankles. 

Draco pauses. He wished to dance for himself. 

“I would love to see if you don’t mind,” Draco says quietly. 

Harry’s face bounds between an expression of longing and one of barely concealed panic. 

“It’s okay if you don’t want to,” Draco says hurriedly. 

“But I do,” Harry says. He hesitates for barely a second more before going over to the sound system and plugging his phone in in place of Draco’s. 

A sweet sound resounds through the room and Draco hurries to the wall so he won’t get in Harry’s way. 

Harry briskly goes to the center of the room and holds for a moment. When he begins to move, Draco’s stomach contracts. 

Draco loves ballet, and he always has. But there is something to be said for being so free to move that you could say anything, absolutely anything, and no one could tell you if you were right or wrong. Harry’s body moves as if tugged along with the music. A game of push and pull, come and go. He is graceful, but sharp. His leaps have a bite to them, and his turns spin almost out of control when he lands them. Not because he is out of control, but because he is being carried away. 

Draco slides to the ground, his back up against the wall. 

Harry’s eyes are wide open and his gaze flicks to Draco’s every now and then. He drags, his legs soar over his head, his fingers trace the floorboards. 

Draco loves it. He wants it. He wants _him_. 

Draco doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he does know that his body is picking itself up from the ground without permission. He knows that Harry is spinning and spinning and then suddenly his hands are on Harry’s waist, stabilizing him as he turns. Harry stops, arcing into Draco’s arms. His eyes blink up at Draco before he grins, the look on his face dazzling. 

And he dances. 

For the first time, Draco lets the music lead the dance. He lets Harry lead the dance. Ballet pulls him, sweeping him up and lifting him to his feet. The natural ache of his pointe shoes welcomes him back as Harry spots him. 

Harry’s hands are on his hips. His hands are on his chest. Hands dancing. 

** _Harry_ **

Harry could feel Draco everywhere. Heavy breaths dance across his face, sweat mingles sweetly, their movements fizz and bubble. A concession, a push, an admission, a lift, a succession, and pull. 

The song ended, Harry and Draco finding their place gracefully. They were close, their chests brushing with their labored breathing. 

“You dance beautifully,” Draco says. Harry blushes royally. 

They are still standing very close. 

“Would you like to go for lunch?” Harry asks breathlessly. He doesn’t know if it’s because of the dancing or because of Draco. 

“Yes,” Draco says without hesitation. 

Harry grins and a shy smile crosses Draco’s face. 

There would be many, many dances to come.

**Author's Note:**

> Here’s some dancer!Drarry. I am indeed a dancer, but I am not on pointe, so I apologize if any of that isn’t accurate! So sorry this took so long to write, but I really hope you like it. I certainly enjoyed writing it. <3


End file.
